Writing to Inspire

 

 

At the start of every new week, I try to select the “right” book to promote next. Sometimes I will pick a book to promote if its “book birthday” is coming up, or I’ll select a book if it has a character or theme that matches a certain day coming up (like the children’s book A Million Doughnuts for National Doughnut Day).

 

But this week, I knew what book to promote without having to think about it.

 

On January 7, 2026, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Macklin Good, an unarmed 37-year-old mother of three. This murder sent shockwaves and anger throughout the country. Many people took to social media to share their outrage over this killing.

 

I was affected by this on a personal level.

 

That a woman was murdered by ICE.

 

That a mother was murdered by ICE.

 

That a poet was murdered by ICE.

 

That a member of the LGBTQ community was murdered by ICE.

 

THAT AN UNARMED AMERICAN CITIZEN WAS MURDERED BY ICE.

 

An American citizen.

 

Not an undocumented immigrant. Not a terrorist. Not someone pointing a gun or posing a threat with a weapon to anyone.

 

An American citizen.

 

And like many other poets responding to this outrage, I wrote my own poem about this incident. A poem I did not share online, because it’s going into a poetry book that I am writing. But I responded to it by writing a poem.

 

Just as I have responded to many other things by writing a poem. In fact, my poetry book, Other, contains poems I have written in response to things: Religious extremism, women’s fight for equality, disability rights, and LGBTQ rights.

 

I wrote those poems all in support of those rights, and I hoped that the poems would inspire people during this time of darkness that this country is in, when the war against the LGBTQ community is still going on and women are STILL fighting for their rights – reproductive rights among them.

 

So I promoted Other this week. I hoped that these poems would inspire people in those communities, who I wrote these poems for. (Well, as a disabled asexual woman, some of those poems were personal). It has gotten a good response from a few people. I know this book won’t create the kind of change I want to see happen in this country, but I hope that it can, at least, empower the readers who are in those groups and give them the strength to keep up the fight.

 

Hopefully one day, we won’t have to keep fighting.

 

Rest in peace, Renee.  

  

The Self-Publishing Problem

 Towards the end of last year, when I decided to take on the challenge of writing and self-publishing an ebook for every month of the year, I automatically decided to use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service. A writer friend had done the same when she did this challenge some time ago, and since I was already using KDP to self-publish poetry and children’s books, it was an easy choice. I went about this business as the months of 2022 went by.

 

Then, in June, I discovered that Amazon was refusing to remove books which promoted transphobic, homophobic and hateful material targeting the LGBTQ+ community. As the parent of two kids who are a part of this community, I was concerned. I felt that I had to do something.

 

That “something” ended up being the decision to look elsewhere to self-publish my ebooks. I just didn’t feel right doing business with a company that was okay with selling homophobic and transphobic material.

 

I chose another service for this challenge. The first ebook I self-pubbed with them went through without a hitch. The bonus was that, unlike Amazon’s KDP ebooks, the ebooks I published through them were also distributed through other online retailers, such as Apple Books, Kobo and ScribD. An even better thing that I liked was that the ebooks were available in various formats: PDF, Mobi and EPUB. (Not everyone likes reading ebooks as a PDF!)

 

But now, with the ebook I self-published last month, I ran into a problem.

 

As a self-publisher, I always take advantage of any opportunity to promote my other books, and not just those which are self-published. That said, if I have relevant titles which are only available on Amazon, then I will include them at the back of the ebooks.

 

Unfortunately, the service I was using doesn’t like that.

 

Shortly after I released the free ebook for July, I got an email from them saying they could not list my book in their Premium Catalog. When I asked why, the response was that this ebook contained links to books on Amazon. As they put it in their email to me, I was not allowed to include any links to competing retailers “of any sort.” Not only did this mean Amazon but also other retailers such as Barnes & Noble, etc.

 

Well, that sucks!

 

The reality is that there are a lot of self-publishers out there who aren’t exactly making a huge profit off of this venture. I am one of them. I have yet to earn what’s known as a “full-time living” as a self-publisher. This is WHY I use free self-publishing services for ebooks such as Amazon’s KDP or this other one. (I create my own covers but I do pay for editing.) 

 

Also, as a person who RELIES on sales of books in order to actually earn anything as a self-publisher, promotion of other books listed at the back of the book is important.

 

Especially the books that are ONLY listed on Amazon!

 

Now, I know that a lot of people don’t like Amazon. I know some people who refuse to shop through Amazon as a matter of principle. But, you know, Amazon is a business. And, they are just one of the many online retailers out there which sell books. (When I made the decision to stop using Amazon to self-publish ebooks, I debated asking my publishers to remove my books from Amazon as well. However, I decided not to, because even though there is a lot of controversy surrounding the company, there are A LOT of people who still use it to buy books AND ebooks for their Kindle. So, that would mean a huge loss of sales for them, which was not a good thing for me to suggest to a business that relies on sales of the books they publish in order to stay in business.)

 

When I self-published ebooks through KDP, I didn’t come across this problem. I included books with links to Barnes & Noble, Kobo and even Walmart, and Amazon didn’t give me any problems over that. However, it seems that this other self-publishing service I have used does have a problem with that.

 

And I have a problem with their having a problem with that!

 

So, I am trying to figure out where to go from here. I DO need to use a self-publishing service that will not charge me, but I need to be able to have the freedom to include whatever links I’d like to include anywhere in the book. Period. I also need a service that will allow me to make the ebooks available as a free download. (Some of them will be used for promotion of other books.)

 

I just might end up going back to using KDP for the free ebooks. I talked it over with my oldest and he told me to just do what I had to do. I may not feel comfortable with this arrangement, but given that being able to have the freedom to put whatever content and links I want to in my book is super important to me (and part of the appeal of self-publishing itself), I will choose a service that enables me to do so.